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Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?
Do any of you have any noteworthy experiences where knowledge of math helped you in an unusual way?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem
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Get Those Brain Cells Working: The Monty Hall Problem
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 29 2016, @10:42PM
Or the answer might be, "people don't know how to read."
The question was, "Do any of you have any noteworthy experiences where knowledge of math helped you in an unusual way?"
53 responses so far. ALL OF THEM about the Monty Hall problem - I read them. NONE about using math knowledge in an unusual way.
I therefore presume the answer to the actual question being asked is, "No." (Even though math has helped me in many ways throughout my life. Not in an unusual way, but rather because I am an unusual person who uses math.)
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Sunday July 31 2016, @06:05AM
I take your point, to some extent. I was guilty myself (though I would argue that the title of the submission - "Monty Hall Problem" with no mention of "noteworthy experiences" - and the way the actual "noteworthy experiences" question is sandwiched between the Monty Hall Problem article quote and the Monty Hall Problem article URL, is not conducive to getting casual readers to focus on the "noteworthy experiences" question rather than the Monty Hall Problem).
But also, you're wrong. The 3 (currently) highest rated comments are not earnest attempts to solve/explain/discuss the Monty Hall Problem. (Admittedly 1 of those 3 was a joke about the problem; but surely everything in the submission is a legitimate target for humour without risking any implied complaints about missing the point.)
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 01 2016, @02:28PM
Well, I should have also said something to put tongue in cheek as well; re-reading my original makes me totally look like the comment police. (And maybe it was, but I didn't have to be a jerk about it.)
You're right that the article is about the Monty Hall problem - the question almost seems like an afterthought. But individual behavior isn't as interesting to me as the group response to the question. You aren't "guilty" as an individual as much as the collective behavior of everyone was, "Hey! Let's focus on the setup instead of the question," instead of focusing on what to me would have been a more authentic nerdhood of talking about how knowledge of math is a beneficial thing generally and can be slippery.
Maybe instead of Betteridge and Godwin, we need a Monty's Law of Narcissism which states, "any circumstance in which the Monty Hall problem is mentioned will immediately direct all attention to the Monty Hall problem." With corollaries that always exist of: The One Who Tries To Prove It Ain't So, The One Who Notes The Problem Isn't Really How The Show Worked, and The One Who Makes Goat Jokes.
Anyway, your comment deserves kudos.